How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak

How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak, No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

In How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, Elif Shafak - an author, academic and human rights advocate - examines the polarisation of political discourse and how our emotions impact our actions and vice versa.

Written at the beginning of the pandemic, this short book - it's less than 100 pages - covers a lot of ground. From social media echo chambers, to feeling anger in the face of oppression, dealing with difficult emotions, and realising that the other side of being heard means actively listening to those who are speaking.

Like most people, this is something I've been thinking about a lot. I have noticed since being off Facebook and Twitter that I am paying more attention to the news and current events. By not getting caught up in every outrage cycle, I'm concentrating on reading, watching and listening to things that are informative and go deeper than the clickbait headlines that crowd our social media timelines.

The outrage generated is often warranted and absolutely necessary. But other times it can leave you wondering why there is uproar about this particular thing.

Shafak does not provide easy answers because there are no easy answers. How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division redirects our attention to channelling our anger into productive actions. Because outrage alone will only get us so far.

It reminded me of conversations I - and many of us - had while canvassing for repeal. There were hardline ‘no’ voters whose minds could not be changed (they couldn't change ours either), but day after day we spoke to people who had genuine concerns. We listened. We answered their questions as best as we could.  Some of them became Yes voters as a result of those conversations.

How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division is a timely and thought-provoking read that would make a great conversation starter with people in your life that you may not agree 100% with politically, but have more in common with than you disagree on. Much like my feelings about this book. I didn't 100% agree with Shafak, but she did make me think about some things in a different way. 

How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division  by Elif Shafak is published by Wellcome Collection and is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook format.

Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York edited by Sari Botton

Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York edited by Sari Botton. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Inspired by the Joan Didion essay of the same name, Goodbye to All That is an anthology of essays about loving and leaving New York.

I spent 2020 rereading as much Joan Didion as I could get my hands on. Sari Botton, the former essays editor at Longform, has edited some of the best essays I've read in recent years. The combination of the two meant that picking up Goodbye to All That was an obvious choice.

First published in 2013, this revised edition includes seven new essays some of which are about the pandemic. As is expected with anthologies, there is a good mix of well known writers - including Roxane Gay, Leslie Jamison, Melissa Febos, and Cheryl Strayed - and new to me writers.

Coming away with an extended to-read list is one of my favourite things about anthologies! 

Goodbye to All That shows us New York from varying perspectives. We hear from people who were born and raised in New York, people who moved across the country to spend time in NY, people who were priced out of the city, and people who left only to find their way back.

This is a well curated collection about adventure, following your dreams, searching for belonging, and what it means to 'feel at home' somewhere.

My favourite essays are The Assistant's Loft by Leslie Jamison, Home by Melissa Febos, Misfits Fit Here by Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Losing New York by Lauren Elkin, and Shelter in Place by Emily Raboteau. 

Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York edited by Sari Botton is published by Seal Press, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, and is available in paperback and ebook format.

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

When she was 12, Eve Black's family were murdered by The Nothing Man. Eve was the sole survivor. Now, almost twenty years later, Eve has written a book about that night and her search for the killer.

Jim Doyle is reading Eve Black's book. He, like everyone else, is hooked on this true crime investigation into a serial killer who has evaded capture. As he reads, Jim realises just how close Eve is to solving the murders. Which is a problem. Because Jim is The Nothing Man (we know this from the blurb, so it's not a spoiler!)

Alternating between the book Eve has written and Jim as he is reading it, The Nothing Man is a well-paced thriller that takes the popularity of true crime and turns it back into fiction. A concept we are going to see more of, I think.

Catherine Ryan Howard has taken inspiration from I'll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara and ratcheted up the tension leaving her reader wondering where the story will take them next.

And here is where reviewing crime fiction gets complicated. There was an aspect of the story that I did not like. I would have enjoyed the novel more without it. I can see other people loving it though, so I am possibly in a minority here. Yet to talk about it would give too much away.

That said, The Nothing Man is a gripping read. Catherine Ryan Howard deftly switches points of view in a manner that ensures that Eve and Jim are fully developed characters.

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard is published by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books, and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format. 

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

When girls have their first period they are divided into one of two categories. They either receive a white ticket or a blue ticket. One ticket sets you on the path to motherhood and marriage. The other means you will not become a mother. The decision is made for you and there is no changing the colour of your ticket. 

Calla knew this would be the case. That she would not have a choice. Yet, here she is wondering what her life would be like if she had been given a different ticket. What if the tickets weren’t a thing and she could choose for herself whether or not to start a family? 

In rejecting the life planned out for her, Calla must face the consequences. Consequences that include trying to outrun the powers that be. At least they have given her a head start! 

Sophie Mackintosh does not spoon feed her reader. How exactly the dystopian world of Blue Ticket came to be is left up the reader’s imagination. Not having all the facts is something I enjoy in dystopian fiction, but I know some people would prefer more world building. The story is told from Calla’s point of view, so it makes sense to me that she may not have all the facts either. 

Blue Ticket is about motherhood and identity. It is about desire, grief and anger. It is about the devastating effects of patriarchal violence. It is a haunting exploration of what it means to have free will, while inhabiting a female body.

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh is published by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

After the Silence by Louise O'Neill

After the Silence by Louise O’Neill. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

An unsolved murder. A close-knit community living on the island of Inisrun, off the coast of county Cork. A film crew arrives to make a documentary to mark the 10th anniversary of Nessa Crowley’s death, hoping to uncover new evidence. On the surface After the Silence sounds like your standard crime novel. But this is Louise O’Neill, so the murder itself acts as the backdrop for an examination of abusive relationships — in all their forms. 

The Kinsella family have never quite recovered from the night Nessa Crowley was killed at a party in their home. How could they, when people are convinced that Henry Kinsella is the man responsible for the crime and Keelin, his wife, is covering for him. 

But Keelin knows that Henry is not a violent man. She left her first husband because he was physically abusive, Henry is not the same. But there is more to domestic abuse than physical violence. Keelin and Henry’s relationship is unsettling from the beginning and that sense of unease grows as the story unfolds.  

Similar to The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard, After the Silence takes the popularity of true crime and turns it back into fiction. There are echoes of the West Cork podcast here and of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara in The Nothing Man. 

After the Silence is an atmospheric and disconcerting slow burner of a novel, which in true O’Neill style spotlights difficult subjects without feeling lecture-y.  

After the Silence by Louise O’Neill is published by riverrun, an imprint of Quercus Books, and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

The Harpy by Megan Hunter

The Harpy by Megan Hunter. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

From the blurb, we know that Lucy’s life is turned upside down when a man calls and tells her that his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband, Jake. 

Lucy and Jake decide to stay together, but come to an arrangement that will allow Lucy to hurt him three times. Jake won’t know when the hurt is coming or what exactly it will be. Lucy is determined to make the punishments fit the crime. 

Told from Lucy’s point of view, we see her drawn more and more to the myth of the harpy. In her hunt for revenge, she is forced to confront things about herself that she would rather continue to ignore. Ignoring things is easier. Yet here she is, planning to deliberately hurt her husband. 

The Harpy is a strange and wondrous fairy tale that seamlessly blends the domestic with the otherworldly. It is dark. It is unsettling. It is full of rage. It is surreal. It is unputdownable. 

At just over 200 pages, Megan Hunter has packed a lot into The Harpy. Yet none of it feels rushed. Hunter has written a compelling and immersive story about love, marriage, betrayal, revenge, womanhood, and motherhood. 

The Harpy by Megan Hunter is published by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format. The paperback edition is published on May 13th.

As You Were by Elaine Feeney

As You Were by Elaine Feeney. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Sinéad Hynes is a married property developer with young children. When Sinéad is hospitalised she decides to hide the true nature of her illness from her family. From everyone except ‘a fat magpie’, that is. 

As You Were follows Sinéad’s time in hospital, where privacy is not possible because those curtains people pull around their beds are not soundproof. As Sinéad struggles with keeping her secret, she watches the other people on the ward deal with their own problems. 

In the bed across from Sinéad, Margaret Rose won’t let a suspected stroke stop her from running her family. Thanks to her trusty Nokia. Dementia means that Jane isn’t always aware of where she is and what is happening. Shane is a quiet man who has suffered a spinal injury. Hegarty is a local politician whose daughter is never far from his side. 

Through this group of people who are forced to spend time together, Elaine Feeney examines the secrets people keep and why, Ireland’s history of institutions, the misogyny that is ingrained in women’s healthcare, and the kindness of strangers. 

This is Feeney’s debut novel, but she is a published poet which I think informs her stream of consciousness writing style. A writing style that lends itself well to a hospital setting and Sinéad’s state mind.  

As You Were is a page-turner tragicomedy that is written with a razor sharp focus on how the events of the past impact our present and future.

As You Were by Elaine Feeney is published by Harvill Secker, an imprint of Vintage Books and Penguin Random House, and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format. The paperback edition will be published on July 1st.

The Book of Queer Prophets curated by Ruth Hunt

The Book of Queer Prophets curated by Ruth Hunt. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Featuring essays from well known authors, Jeanette Winterson and Juno Dawson and the screenwriter and director Dustin Lance Black, The Book of Queer Prophets looks at the what it means to be religious and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. 

The Book of Queer Prophets is a thought-provoking read, but I found it a little uneven. This is often the case with anthologies, where I connect with some writers and essays more than others. While there are essays about Islam and Judaism, this is a predominately Christian focused collection. It is also western-centric. 

The afterword is an essay by Reverend Kate Bottley, familiar to many people as a result of appearing on Gogglebox, about how she became an LGBTQ+ ally. I understand why her experience was included, but I think the range of religious LGBTQ+ people we heard from could have been expanded before including allies. 

Overall, I would recommend The Book of Queer Prophets if you are looking to broaden your LGBTQ+ non-fiction reading. The standout essays for me were The Queer Prophet by Amrou Al-Kadhi, Mustangs and Mama Dragons by Dustin Lance Black and A Letter to My Nephew by Jarel Robinson-Brown.

The Book of Queer Prophets curated by Ruth Hunt is published by William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins, and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format. The paperback edition is published on May 27th.

The Fragments of my Father: A memoir of madness, love and being a carer by Sam Mills

The Fragments of my Father: A memoir of madness, love and being a carer by Sam Mills. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

The Fragments of my Father by Sam Mills is part memoir and part literary biography. 

When Sam Mills' mother is diagnosed with cancer in 2010, Mills moves back into the family home to care for her and her father. Mills' father has a rare form of schizophrenia, one that is accompanied by bouts of catatonia. Following her mother's death in 2012, Mills became her father's primary carer. 

Mills shares the impact that caring has on all aspects of her life; familial relationships, personal relationships, her work as an author and publisher, and her financial situation. She also brings us back to her childhood, when she didn't fully understand the reasons for her father's frequent absences. 

Mills weaves her personal experience together with an examination of the history of caring and an account of the lives of Leonard Woolf, who cared for his wife Virginia Woolf, and F Scott Fitzgerald, who cared for his wife Zelda. 

This combination provides scope for Mills' exploration of how the possible links between madness and creativity were viewed in the past and how that has or has not changed. 

The Fragments of my Father is a deeply affecting read that shows the complexities of caring for a loved one.

The Fragments of my Father: A memoir of madness, love and being a carer by Sam Mills is published by 4th Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins, and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power by Ijeoma Oluo

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power by Ijeoma Oluo. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo is a deep dive into the damage caused by the drive to uphold the power of white men. No matter how qualified or unqualified those individual white men may be. 

Charting the history of America—by way of Buffalo Bill, the civil rights movement, Joe Biden’s flip flopping record on school desegregation busing, racism within the NFL, and the backlash against the increasing number of women in politics on both the right and the left (Bernie bros, rightfully, do not get a pass here!)—Ijeoma Oluo examines the destructive impact white male supremacy has on Black people, people of colour and women. 

This is how patriarchy and white supremacy were designed to work. And since they are both built into the fabric of daily life, they are inescapable. This is particularly true for people who live at the intersection of race and gender. Completely dismantling these systems of oppression is necessary because incremental changes have not been enough. 

Oluo’s analysis is clear-thinking. Her writing is sharp, focused, and accessible despite the academic nature of some of the research involved. 

I started reading Mediocre at the end of December and finished it the week of the US Capitol insurrection, which was an all too real manifestation of everything Oluo discusses. This added to the intensity of the book, but emphasised how vital a read Mediocre is. 

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power by Ijeoma Oluo is published by Seal Press, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group, and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format. 

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here

Born prematurely to Korean parents, who had emigrated to America, Nicole Chung was adopted by a white couple. Growing up in a small town in Oregon in the 1980s, Chung faced discrimination and racism that everyone around her, including her adoptive family, struggled to see or fully understand. 

From the beginning, Chung's adoption story was framed by her religious parents as being destined by God and that her birth parents made the ultimate sacrifice in order for Nicole to have a better life. As she grew up, Chung began finding this version of events less comforting and more confusing. 

It felt like only half of the story and Chung wanted the whole story. 

It is while pregnant with her first child that Chung makes contact with her birth family. She needs more details about her premature birth than her adoptive parents can provide. 

As suspected, the reasons for her adoption were more complicated than her parents portrayed. More complicated than they, themselves, understood. 

Chung gives voice to her complex and, often, messy and conflicting emotions about being a transracial adoptee. She writes about these complexities in a way that is sensitive to the experiences of her adoptive parents and her birth parents and siblings.

All You Can Ever Know is a moving and thought-provoking memoir about transracial adoption, race, identity, motherhood, and family in all its forms. 

All You Can Ever Know is published by ONE, an imprint of Pushkin Press, and is available in hardback. paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

Girlhood by Melissa Febos

Girlhood by Melissa Febos. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

I finished reading Girlhood by Melissa Febos and immediately wanted to discuss it at a feminist book club. I am not a member of a feminist book club — maybe this will finally spur me on to start one! — so this review will have to do. 

Honestly, though, this is a book better suited to discussion than a written review 

Blending memoir with reportage, academic research, and cultural criticism, the essays in this collection examine the many ways girls realise that their bodies are not their own. And explores the impact these experiences have on the women those girls become. 

Febos writes about her early adolescent sexual experiences and the reputation she garnered as a result, her time as a dominatrix, being a heroin addict and getting sober, her relationship with her mother, and the man who stood outside her bedroom window and catcalled her from the street. 

This is a book about girlhood, but it is also a book about queer girlhood. 

While the girl who told Febos when they were both nine years old, "Your ring finger is longer than your pointer finger. That means you are a lesbian." was, obviously, repeating one of the many myths about lesbians that young girls often share; Febos is queer. 

Queerness permeates the text, in the best possible way, from her first girlfriend to the decentring of men in her personal life and her relationship with her current partner, Donika. It is part of the narrative because queerness is part of Febos' life, but this isn't a coming out story. Her queerness just is. Which is refreshing, still. It shouldn't be, it's 2021 after all, but it is. 

Girlhood is confronting, dark, twisty, and visceral. It is also considered and full of nuance. 

The standout essays for me are Intrusions, Wild America, Thesmophoria, and Thank You for Taking Care of Yourself. 

Girlhood by Melissa Febos is published by Bloomsbury and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format.

Real Estate by Deborah Levy

Real Estate by Deborah Levy. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Real Estate is the third and final installment in Deborah Levy's 'Living Autobiography' series. 

There is something comforting about reading Levy's meditation on real estate, owning a house, and the concept of home during lockdown. Real Estate was written before the pandemic but, after a year where we have largely been confined to within 5km of our homes, I suspect its themes will connect with more people than it might ordinarily have. 

As she approaches her sixtieth birthday and her youngest daughter gets ready to leave their flat to attend university, Levy is preoccupied with what her legacy will be. What will she leave behind? Her children and the books she has written, yes. But there won't be a house. 

A fellowship in Paris provides the perfect escape from her flat in London and the two sheds she is renting, so that she has a place of her own to write. She knows that her ideal house will remain a pipe dream, but she can still dream — right? 

I don't want to say too much about the narrative. So much of the joy is in watching the story unfold. Levy weaves her thoughts on creativity, motherhood, aging, relationships, legacy, and home into a refreshing memoir that is a call to build the life you want.

It can be read as a standalone book but, if you haven't already, I recommend reading Things I Don't Want You Know and The Cost of Living first. If only because you'll get to spend more time in Deborah Levy's world which is time well spent. 

Real Estate by Deborah Levy is published on May 13th by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Random House. It is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format.

Bring Me to Light: Embracing My Bipolar and Social Anxiety by Eleanor Segall

Bring Me to Light: Embracing My Bipolar and Social Anxiety by Eleanor Segall. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Bipolar disorder runs in Eleanor Segall's family, so while her diagnosis wasn't wholly unsurprising — especially when her periods of depression gave way to episodes of mania and psychosis — that doesn't mean it was an easy diagnosis to accept or adjust to. 

Taking us back to when she first became ill at 15, Segall shares her experiences of depression, mania, psychosis, social anxiety, and agoraphobia. She writes candidly about the time she spent in hospital, both involuntarily and voluntarily. We learn about the impact bipolar disorder and social anxiety has had on her education and work life. How her life didn't follow the plan she thought it would. 

There is also a really interesting and important discussion about religion and mental health. Segall is Jewish and writes wonderfully about this part of her identity and her volunteer work with Jami, a mental health service for the Jewish community. 

Calling people courageous for writing about their mental health can seem trite these days, but it is brave of Segall to share her experiences of hypersexuality during manic episodes and what consent actually means in these circumstances. 

This is an aspect of an already complex mental illness that is not talked about enough. I can understand why. It's often not an experience people want to revisit after the fact. Or it's a period of time that they have little to no memory of. Or they've fallen into a shame spiral and talking to people about it is the last thing they want to do. 

I've been thinking about this a lot recently because it's one of the symptoms of bipolar disorder that people are familiar with, but that does not mean we understand it fully. Or know how to react when people we know are in this situation. 

At its core Bring Me to Light by Eleanor Segall is about learning to live alongside your mental illness. Recovery is possible, but it takes work. Recovery also isn't linear and periods of relapse can and do happen. All of which is OK. It can be complicated and messy, but relapse does not mean you have failed. 

If you live with bipolar disorder, much of Bring Me to Light will resonate even if your experience doesn't exactly match Segall's. I would also recommend it to people who don't have a mental health condition, but who want to learn more about mental illness.

Bring Me to Light: Embracing My Bipolar and Social Anxiety by Eleanor Segall is published by Trigger Publishing and is available in paperback and ebook format.

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Taking its name from a line in Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.”, Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad is a memoir about living with cancer and the process of rebuilding your life once treatment is complete. 

The uncontrollable itch and never-ending fatigue that started when Jaouad was in college led to a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia at the age of 22. 

A diagnosis which meant Jaouad had to leave Paris and move back in with her parents in Saratoga Springs, New York. 

The next few years were spent in treatment; chemotherapy, a clinical trial, and ultimately a stem cell transplant. When Jaouad began blogging about her life it garnered more attention than she expected and became a column in the New York Times entitled Life, Interrupted. 

Jaouad writes beautifully about the impact cancer had on the people around her, particularly her parents, her brother, and her partner. She strikes the right balance between understanding that although this is her story to tell, the people involved also deserve their privacy. This is especially well handled when her relationship ends and when she talks about her friends, Melissa and Max.

The second half of the book takes us on the cross country road trip Jaouad embarks on to visit some of the people who wrote to her after reading her column. 

The story switches from past to present tense as Jaouad rediscovers what it means to live a life that isn't centred around hospitals. All while acknowledging that this is a rediscovery many people, including her friends, will not get to make. 

In not shying away from the difficult times or the joyous moments, Jaouad has written a compelling memoir that is hopeful without relying on false hope.

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad is published by Bantam Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit

Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit. Advance Reader Copy (eARC) from the publisher via Netgalley included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here. 

Rebecca Solnit is one of my favourite essayists, so her memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence was on my anticipated releases of 2020 list. So much so, that I have read it twice since its publication last March. 

Let's overlook the fact that it has taken me a year to actually review it! I read loads and took copious notes last year, but my concentration didn't stretch to writing full reviews so I am playing catch up. 

Many of the experiences Solnit shares are centred around the studio apartment in San Francisco that was her home for over twenty years. It is here that she grapples with the realisation that the "nonexistence" she feels is as a result of the patriarchy. 

That her instinct to disappear, by blending into the background of whatever situation she is in, is an attempt to avoid the wrath of men. An instinct, she contends, that many, if not all, women have because we internalise the idea that our actions are responsible for the abuse - in all its forms - we receive from men. 

Rationally we know that it isn't true but we have been socialised to act as if it is nonetheless. 

As with her essays, the themes Solnit explores here include gender based violence, feminism and its continued evolution, environmental justice, queer activism and politics, and the impact of fear and trauma on creativity. 

Recollections of My Nonexistence is an assured study of how Solnit found her voice; as a woman, as an activist, as a feminist, and ultimately as a writer. 

Solnit skilfully blends the personal, the political, and the cultural giving us an engaging memoir about reclaiming our power by stepping out of the shadows.

Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit is published by Granta and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

A Still Life: A Memoir by Josie George

A Still Life: A Memoir by Josie George. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Josie George has lived with a chronic illness for most of her life. 

By the age of eight she was already a mystery to the many doctors she saw because no-one knew exactly what was wrong with her. In the years since, her diagnosis has changed multiple times. Doctors still cannot give her a definitive diagnosis. 

Along the way she has been belittled, dismissed and accused of exaggerating or outright lying. Experiences that will be depressingly familiar to anyone — particularly women — who has struggled to have their chronic pain or other chronic illness diagnosed and treated appropriately. 

A Still Life is divided into four parts; the winter, spring, summer, and autumn of 2018. Within each section we are also brought back to the "then" of George's childhood, how her illness impacted her time in school, the abusive relationship she experienced in her early teens, how her illness affected her ability to work, the beginning and ending of her marriage, the birth of her son, and her decision to use a mobility scooter to ensure her life is as active as it can be. 

The present day sections focus on George's day-to-day life with her son, how she observes the world around her and her growing relationship with Fraser, who lives in Denmark. 

It is in describing the small moments of her daily life that George's eye for detail shines through. She does not shy away from the realities of living with a chronic illness, especially when raising a child, but it is also through this lens that she challenges us to stop and take stock of our own lives. In being forced to slow down she has learned to make the most of the little things. Something that will probably resonate with a lot more people than it would have pre-pandemic. 

George's writing is intimate, precise and full on incisive observations about modern life. 

It may only be April, but I can confidently say that A Still Life will feature in my favourite books of 2021 round-up in December.


A Still Life: A Memoir by Josie George is published by Bloomsbury and is available in hardback, ebook and audiobook format

Heal Me: In Search of a Cure by Julia Buckley

Heal Me: In Search of a Cure by Julia Buckley. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

When Julia Buckley reaches for a cup of coffee one day in 2012 she doesn't expect it to trigger a chronic pain in her arm that would last four years. Yet, that's exactly what happens. 

Is the pain a disorder in its own right or a symptom of an underlying medical condition? 

As is so often the case with chronic pain, especially when the person living with the pain is a woman, Buckley struggles to receive a definitive diagnosis. 

Buckley eventually quits her job as a travel journalist and moves back in with her mother because of the impact chronic pain has on her life. 

Her experiences with doctors and other health care professionals range from the positive to the frustrating and the downright dismissive. While some doctors try to find the cause of Buckley's pain, others dismiss it as being 'all in her head' and therefore not within their remit to treat. 

Again, an all too common occurrence for people — especially women — dealing with a  chronic illness. 

However, when all that is left are pain management strategies that focus on learning to live with chronic pain rather than attempting to cure it, Buckley decides to look for alternative therapies. 

What follows is a quest for a cure that takes Buckley all over the world. She tries medical marijuana in America. Visits the baths at Lourdes. Sees an herbalist in an extremely remote area of China. Sees traditional healers in multiple countries including a witch doctor in Haiti. Has a session with a guru in Austria and goes to see a 'miracle worker' in Brazil. 

A few years ago I would have rolled my eyes at almost all of the alternative treatments Buckley tries and wondered how the hell she got sucked into trying them in the first place. And I still found much of this book frustrating. 

But here's the thing about living with chronic pain: you will do anything to improve your symptoms, especially when the healthcare system has dismissed you repeatedly. This is an aspect of the 'wellness industry' that we don't talk about enough. The reasons why people turn to unproven treatments are many and varied, but at the core is usually a desire to feel better. Whatever 'better' means for the individual person involved. 

How we prevent people being negatively affected — emotionally, financially or physically — by alternative therapies and pseudoscience is something I do not have an answer for, but I no longer think it is as simple as pointing out the pseudoscience to people. 

I may not have made the same choices as Buckley, but I completely understand why she made them. 

Heal Me is Julia Buckley's personal story, but her experience of navigating a health care system  — the NHS in her case — for issues that are chronic will resonate with many people.


Heal Me: In Search of a Cure by Julia Buckley is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and is available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook format.

Beyond The Tape: The Life and Many Deaths of a State Pathologist by Dr Marie Cassidy

Beyond The Tape: The Life and Many Deaths of a State Pathologist by Dr Marie Cassidy. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Beyond The Tape by Dr Marie Cassidy was a strange book to read. I'm not sure whether the issues I had were down to me or the book itself. 

I really enjoyed learning about the differences between the Scottish and Irish legal systems and how that impacts the work Cassidy did as a pathologist in each country. Her discussions about the early days of forensic science and its continued evolution were fascinating. I could have read an entire book dedicated to just this topic. 

The cases detailed are many, varied and quite graphic in the level of information shared. This isn’t unexpected, it is a memoir about Cassidy's time as a state pathologist after all. In many of the cases mentioned the victims and perpetrators are named, while in other cases no names are given. Again, not unexpected given Cassidy worked on many high profile cases. 

My issue is with the tone in some sections of the book. There is a flippancy that surprised me. It's possible this is a personality or sense of humour thing that doesn't translate well into print. That these particular stories are best shared during a chat in a pub or over coffee, where tone is easier to detect. I found some of her descriptions really jarring. 

Beyond The Tape: The Life and Many Deaths of a State Pathologist by Dr Marie Cassidy is published by Hachette Books Ireland and is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook format. 

Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith

Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links used. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Intimations by Zadie Smith is a collection of six essays written at the beginning of the pandemic and published last summer. It is very much a snapshot of life just before and during the initial lockdown. Or as Smith writes in her foreword, dated May 2020, she has tried to "organise some of the feelings and thoughts that events, so far, have provoked in me, in those scraps of time the year itself has allowed."

I know people won't want to read it simply because we are still in the middle of the pandemic, which I completely understand. That's how I feel about fiction and TV/film that is even remotely pandemic related. Yet I am finding comfort in reading essays about people's personal lockdown experiences. 

In less than a 100 pages, Smith explores the personal and the political - especially when writing about the impact the virus and the handling of the pandemic by both the US and UK governments  has had on people from already marginalised communities. 

The standout essays for me are Something to Do, Suffering Like Mel Gibson, and Screengrabs (After Berger, before the virus). 

Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith is published by Penguin and is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook format.